Thank you for coming there's a always
a million competing things to do

at the start this semester even though
I guess we're five weeks in but

still feels like the start to appreciate
taking the time when I want to talk about

the essential of the research that I've
done the last year there was supported by.

The college and give you a sense
of the forthcoming book and

sort of tend to contextualize this
building type the stadium which I think

historically has been under examined
by critics and theorists I think is

a very interesting place to examine both
the social practice of architecture but

also the social practice of sport.

OK.

I should say that this work
is not done alone study or

a global building type and the work I do

in large part comes from the association
with the international architects and

the subdivision of that organisation
the sport and leisure group and

we tour as a group one of our tasks
is we tour Olympic venues and

we write reports to the I.O.C.
which I think the I.O.C.

says like thank you and they put them in
a drawer and never look at them again but

it's nice because we get to travel
around the world and congregate and

get to visit these these kinds of
places these are almost all exclusively

architects rather than faculty but

nevertheless what I want to suggest is
that this this kind of work really does

have a global perspective and I think it's
one of the most interesting things about

study is that it doesn't matter where you
go in the world you can find them and

they are increasingly being built and
rebuilt at a pace that's really quite

distinct from where it was
even thirty years ago.

Doesn't work.

So well off a million with
the kind of iconic grew.

And vision of the kind of high tech
stadium of the recent past and so

this is an excellent sample heard so
I condemn a run on the arena in Munich.

Again thirty five years ago most study
would have been designed by firm

specialize in this kind of work
H K S H OK a handful of others it wasn't

really the venue or the purview of sort
of capital a big name for architects and

it really has changed quite
dramatically in the last twenty years.

That's changed quite dramatically
that time is the relative cost so

the average stadium for
capacity fifty five thousand

in one nine hundred seventy five or
nine hundred eighty might have run you

out of a billion dollars which is still a
lot of money two hundred fifty million but

substantially less than an hour the
average stadium in the U.S. might run one

point two five billion and in other venues
other locations as high as two billion so

these really are some the most expensive
projects in the world any given time and

they had this power to you know
technology to yoke scale and

to yoke human passion is done in ways
I find really quite interesting.

So to can textural as my own position.

On this project I come from a.

Position largely informed by
my own childhood growing up in

Central America and Eastern Europe where
sport played a very particular role

in organizing your daily life and
as a gringo in Central America.

Sport was a very powerful
way to either become a part

except it into the culture of the place
you were in or to be excluded and

those ambitions on the one hand
I very much agree with this

idea that football represents the Open
your kingdom of liberty to humanity and

in fact this is the Emirates Stadium in
London recently completed by populus in

two thousand and six I wanted to have this
project and it was amazing the kind of

idea the Gramsci expressed which was I
didn't know any of these people before.

By the end of the tour everyone wore it
was like best friends because we were all

Arsenal fans we all left the stadium and
because we were there we really suddenly

had this bond in this condition of liberty
to one another so this guy here who

was ninety and food grown up about
ten minutes west of the ground he and

I were by the new tour you know just best
friends and I think it's unusual that

a building type can engender that kind
of interaction so powerfully and so

so simply and so effectively so it doesn't
matter where you go stadiums can do that

and there aren't many building types I
think have that have that capacity so

that's one vector that informs my work.

The other is the reality that in many
parts of the world all the less than

United States sport is a very powerful
tool of politics and this was something

I learned at a very young age when I
lived in Honduras in the mid eighty's and

found out that the hundred in El Salvador
had gone to war in one thousand sixty nine

in a conflict called the football
war the soccer war that started.

In a riot at the stadium in
San Salvador left there Blanca.

And as a child were itself was a kind of
abstract thing that's hard to understand

but it seemed to me that this was the only
kind of war that made sense because I

could understand the idea of the passion
of sport taking place on the pitch

translating into a geo political
activity and indeed in Latin America as

Kapuscinski says the bridge between
football and politics is vague.

And if we think about the non-sporting and

to which studies have been used at a
global scale this is very much the case or

looking here in one nine hundred seventy
three at the study and I see it now.

In Santiago where Pinochet rounded
up between forty thousand and

fifty thousand Chilean dissidents and
they were jailed in the stadium

tortured in the stadium some executed in
the stadium the stadium is still used to.

As an active venue today in fact in
the twenty fifteen Copa America final

the chilling one in Santiago they
played in this very stadium and

you can't quite make it out but
there's a set of stands right here but

even preserve the original wooden stands
as a memorial to the Chileans that were

jailed tortured and murdered there and
so for think about stadiums and

thinking about them not only is places
where sporting activity happens but

places where other kinds of activity
happened to my mind those uses are just as

important and just as powerful.

And indeed in one thousand nine hundred
eighty eight the generals the ruling junta

of Argentina clearly understood
the value of spirit as a way to

unify a population bring them together
to have a global stage on which to

project the power of the Argentinian
state and to dismiss or or to to

to Jeff use to diffuse
internal dissent and so

when Argentina who handily won the seventy
eight World Cup and many think that that's

a story of incredible corruption in of
itself defeated Holland here at the start

of Liberty where River Plate play there's
an explosion of ecstasy and still one

general kind of radicals impressed with
perilous Catholics with presidents and

Jews and all had only one flag
the flag of Argentina and so

this idea of how the social practice of
architecture and the social practice of

sport come together to create unity across
seemingly individual boundaries is like

was very important to me.

In moving to Eastern Europe.

I found that is different as Eastern
Europe where one thing was the same

which was the incredible power of sport in
particular of soccer football to organize

daily life and
as a as a tool of political regimes.

And if we think about it in the former
Yugoslavia the grand stadium.

In SA grab was the maxim your stadium.

Which in the seventy's when it was
redesigned under Tito was broadcast as

an exemplar of Yugoslavian engineering
finesse and technological finesse

but it was also the stadium where in
one nine hundred ninety a game between.

And Red Star Belgrade took
place where famously battles

between fans in the stands burst
onto the field with the police

who pursued the time of the partisans
of the Serbian fans began to

beat the Croatian fans and some accretion
players fans really be unbearable and

Croatian player famously ran out and

kicked one of the police officers and it
was broadcast live on national television.

And this is regarded as the initial flash
point of the Yugoslavian Civil War So

again we talk about the role
of these studies are.

They really have a role far beyond
just sport in fact if you go to

to the maxim You're today there's a plaque
that says in honor of those players and

fans who on this day.

Fought for the freedom of of Croatia.

And then finally the sort of
last kind of flame example

that shapes the way I look at these
projects is the example of Ceausescu

where I lived just after
the revolution and Ceausescu

here with his wife Elaine at
their trial which was televised.

Understood quite powerfully
the relationship between the building

landscape and a political agenda and
he pursued those in

ways that we consider fairly obvious I
think so one of those building the second

largest bill in the world the cuss at
the port of the house of the people.

Which was the site kind of massive
project that displaced a neighborhood

of forty thousand that we understand
the kind of standard politicians approach

the built environment to build
a grand scale to represent the state.

And like rice he undertook
a vast campaign.

Demolition in Bucharest
destroying much of the.

Historic architecture of the nation and

replacing it with new appropriately
socialist architecture.

Which meant you know buildings
like movies were torn down or

replaced by super block apartment
complexes this we understand.

But he did something else that I
think is really quite interesting.

Cheska was born in a small
village called scorn a chesty

which has a population at
that time of ten thousand.

And built the stadium and
scored a chesty that hold thirty thousand.

And the team that played there F.C.
old magically got promoted from the second

division to the First Division One
last of the season

to gain that promotion they won their
last game by a score of seventeen zero.

All the best players in the country
were recruited by this team that was

in the middle of nowhere but because it
was touch and goes home it was important

they not only have a winning team but
that they have a winning stadium and

of course once the revolution took place
church or school was murdered executed

all of the players left this is
what you find Now if you go to

school to just eat which is now I think
has a population of thirteen thousand.

And so this stadium sits as as an exemplar
of that belief on the part of political

leadership that this form of architecture
can represent their aspirations and

values so powerfully.

Now it goes without saying then that
one of the fundamental elements.

That started to bring to bear at any
given environment is a way of shaping

the identity of that place and providing
a kind of powerful iconic image of

that urban identity that's we're looking
here at study abroad but it was a sort of

more it may not be the only apparent
how and what ways this project which.

When we look at it simply
in a sectional kind of

cruel architectural representation but
if you look at it.

As an image what you find is that you
know this is this is a project where they

look at the stadium in an old quarry
which had been the kind of lifeblood

of the town for
most of the past two centuries and so

really use it you know sort of in
the seats and you're watching this all

rock walls rise up you really are in
a moment where the architecture and

the landscape are coming together in
a really powerful way to represent

an identity of the city of Braga and
furthermore in our highly digitized

age when these images are broadcast around
the world this venue hosts a two thousand

European Cup match the entire world
may not know very much about Braga but

hundreds of thousands millions of
people will know the stadium and

will certainly know the city by virtue
of this project in a way that they might

never have heard of before.

You find.

Other recent examples doing this
in very surprising ways this is.

The new stadium in Bordeaux
there by her side and

him around which is interesting for
a couple of reasons.

Well I wonder if something immediately
comes to mind that seems curious to you

about the stadium.

Columns Yes so for generations architects
and engineers have tried to figure out how

to remove columns from the stadium
because of course it impedes sight lines.

And hooks I've been to my own here have
pursued the entirely opposite effect it

is it is richly commonly these are in
fact not even structural columns and

a load bearing they
are entirely decorative And so

what we see here is the idea of these
structures as pragmatic and rational and

sort of reverse engineered is not the case
at all and if we look at the kind

of pristine pure whiteness of I
mean it really takes on a kind of.

Quality and character elegance these
columns are almost gothic in a kind of

capacity imagine this very thin seemingly
structural elements if you don't know that

they are actually decorative you begin
to imagine holding the tremendous weight

of that shell above you and

really it is a kind of moment of
the sublime in a very powerful way.

Other interesting examples not
characteristic of what we tend

to find that states that we might
look at Beaver Stadium in Dublin

which is located in the wonderfully
named neighborhood of Bear's bridge

which is actually a very affluent
neighborhood and this again highlights

ways in which studies at a global scale
are understood very differently than you

might imagine in the U.S.
there's a very wealthy neighborhood.

Suits for a concert a maximum
capacity sixty five thousand.

There is no parking you backs us this by
train to actually outside our thirty spots

underground but those are reserved for
the handicapped or disabled fans.

And the form of it which made for
seem entirely poetic is in fact driven

by the requirement that it a settle into
the neighborhood and be contained sound so

that when there is an event at the stadium
you can stand two blocks away and

not hear anything it is the world's
largest poly clad carbonate

structure polycarbonate structure and
it is an amazing.

Kind of place to be it's
a it's a populous project.

And it identifies not only the city of
Dublin many visitors to Dublin come

in via ferry from Wales and as you as
you write into the city the former

kind of marker of urban identity was
the power station look at the port but

now you can see this benefit as it
shimmers in the light as you come in it

really does redefine the landscape
of Dublin in a really powerful way.

This is London the one of the limpid
stadium a couple of months ago which has

been retrofitted now is the home
stadium for West Ham United it has.

Ostensibly according to the architects
of the world's largest can't believe

roof structure so
we're seeing increasingly really

novel engineering technologies being
deployed on these the cost of this roof

along with something in the range of fifty
million pounds which is an incredible

amount of resources to be funneled
through it's this solution

that could be arrived at many other ways
and keep in mind in this in this context

these are public funds it is less common
in Europe that you find study a publicly

funded the way we do know the states but
it is the case for The Times They Are and

therefore we understand this again as
a kind of political decision a kind of

investment on the part of the first
of the former mayor of London.

Can just chemist and crack mayor
bursts but this is something they want

to pursue because they imagine it
has intrinsic political value and

investment value for the city.

But of course it's not just in in the kind
of grand capitals of sport that you find

really interesting and
innovative projects so you can go

to Bell roofs not into the major cities
ability shouldn't go to a small town but

we saw and find this bro self
arena designed by a local firm

which is this kind of fantastical project
that seats a battle of an thousand.

And looks like I would suspect nothing
you would expect ever expected to find

in Bellerose and indeed.

This stadium probably has
generated more coverage for

both the team us off in
case you didn't know

that's the core team that plays there and
for the city.

And one thing you do find out about study
is that people do make pilgrimages to

these things so that they attract fans not

just on game day but in some cases every
other day of the week if you go and

field or Old Trafford they run some in
the range of fifteen to twenty two hours

every day seven days a week now for
people want to watch the game but

people want to visit the building and
want to commune with the building.

And so again the technology and the
engineering innovations give us a kind of.

Formal gesture that seems
very forward thinking but

it's touching it's tying into
traditions and values that are quite

quite mature.

As a result because these are such
little projects they become interesting

to examine when there is a conflict
either about the formal condition or

about the nature of the design and so
this is designed to do the proposal for

the new national stadium of Japan
in Tokyo which when the competition

was decided by the Japanese government
published a quarter page ads in

The New York Times The Washington Post The
Chicago Tribune a number of others showing

this project and
St very clearly this stadium represents

the image of the future of Japan and
of a technologically advanced society but

as a society the blues
in the value of sport.

And almost immediately the project
came under attack from a variety

of Japanese architects who said.

Well some of the queues
are looking like a toilet.

Some said it looked like.

A total.

Number of people there was a variety
of photo shops of little babies

with their pants down sitting
on top of the stadium.

And you know many have suggested.

This was a kind of subconsciously or
consciously a dual critique

which was that Saudi was number one a
foreigner and therefore not appropriate to

design the Japanese National Stadium which
should be designed by a Japanese architect

that the nationalist imperative.

Did not easily jibe with a foreigner
designing the building and

the second was this idea was a woman.

And that therefore she was inappropriate
because this was a masculine.

Program type and her.

Identity as both a foreigner and
a woman rendered her suspect

as the driving force behind a project
of this scale this cost and

with this particular program
I think it is interesting

in a moment when an architect with
with that kind of reputation globally

can be subject to that kind of criticism
at a very mature stage in her career

when we see that these projects carry
a kind of weight that we don't find with

government buildings with tall buildings
with a variety of other kinds of

projects that are also we understand to
be heavily freighted with nationalist and

social over overtones.

It's currently no debate what is going
to happen the film released a very

interesting twenty three minute video
defending their their activities and

and their rule the design process and
there's some dispute over whether it was

actually the fault of the contractors who
were doing the pricing that the budget

went from one point two billion to over
two billion or not and those kinds

of debates are also increasingly very
very interesting in terms of how and

what ways we parcel out authority
in projects of this scale.

But technology also plays
in ways we might not expect

that again highlights the changing
aspect of these bills.

In types so this is Hampden Park
in Glasgow originally built in one

thousand or three by actual beach
who was the first stark attacked

stadium design it built over thirty
study in Glasgow in Scotland and England

including some of the most famous once he
was actually engineer not an architect so

you know there you go I brought
him to parties I would have been

rebuilt many many times over
the years in situ never moving and

here is how it existed in twenty
fifteen or twenty thirteen story.

Ahead of the award of
the Commonwealth Games to Glasgow

and grad school has three study each with
capacity between fifty to sixty thousand

so they weren't going to build a purpose
built stadium for this competition which

is kind of like the Olympics of the former
Commonwealth of the U.K. The only problem

was they intend to hold the track and
field events in the stadium but the pitch

in the ground was too small to meet
the rules of the International Track and

Field Association which demands
a certain minimum with and

breadth and so the question became what to
do how do you how you solve this problem.

And I came up with a very interesting.

Solution.

Which is.

They simply raised.

The playing surface.

So take out a pack a seats.

Cover the entire surface and asphalt.

And put in a row of six thousand columns.

Metal plates above that.

Two feet of crushed rock.

Number two feet of soil.

And then rebuild the entire athletic
surface on what is a provisional

structure that will be removed
once the games are complete it.

This is Glasgow's music not
mine if you can hear it but

the choosing this has it's own story.

The track surface for

this event as it is a material called
Mondo which is a proprietary material

that actually can be removed and reuse to
different locations so you don't actually

waste the material that's been put down
gets put up and reused at different

venues.

And so this is not advanced technology but
rather a novel use of technology

in an existing venue that that suggests
something I think is really critical now

which is all of these venues have to be
really much more flexible than we might

imagine twenty five or thirty years ago
they have to host it wide variety of it's

they have to be able to be transformed
often in as little as two to three weeks

this project I think took a total of about
a month so when you go to the games and

you look at that pitch you're matching
what you were seen athletes competing

on the ground as it were but
this is so this is very dark as if it

was very very dark under There is also
very very terrifying to go into there.

But you crawl under there and in fact this
is this is what it is it's this a ray

of six thousand columns holding up
these metal plates all of that to

accommodate an extension of
the playing field dimensions.

And so again the kind of range of.

Interventions that take place to to make
these things possible really is quite

dramatic.

Now obviously we couldn't have
this conversation without talking

at least a little bit about us examples.

So I bring up this was anyone know.

This.

Is not Texas now.

It's Arizona.

University of Phoenix Stadium designed by.

Peter Eisenman Peter Eisenman it turns
out is a massive sports fanatic so

H H OK sport unit which then broke off and

became populous I was talking to
the guys from the from populous and

he said you know he would just rattle off
you know statistics from games thirty

years ago stats from the N.F.L.
So if you didn't know that Peter Roskam

is a sportswriter this is a peculiar
American iteration though in some ways

because of course University of Phoenix is
a detour to realize university it doesn't

exist in real space and
time it doesn't have a football team.

So the Cardinals play here but it's not
called Cardinal state it's called the rest

of Phoenix Stadium and this is something
I think that is quite distinct in the US

context from from a global context
which is the kind of place Listen this.

Of many of our study here so
you have a stadium

named after university that has no
campus has no team to play in there.

It is not in Phoenix proper but in the
suburbs and the sort of real technological

innovation of this venue was when it's
complete in two thousand and six.

The field on which the teams play
when they're not playing actually

very was out of the stadium on
a series of massive rollers and

spends three hundred twenty five days of
the year outside of the stadium basking in

all the sun the Phoenix provides the steam
actually has a close retractable roof.

But it's more.

Have to operate the roof then it was to
build a system that runs the field out

of the stadium and
into a kind of reserved garden space and

did even when they play games they
usually leave the roof closed

because people Phoenix complain about the
temperature if they leave the roof open so

the huge investment in making
a retractable roof system

is actually wanted to never
operated on during game day.

Yeah.

Well illustrate this about
my second to last flight.

I was going to close with a fly through

the new Atlanta Falcons stadium which
of course because it does anyone know.

Research has been stadium.

Great ironies of course the great rivalry
with the Falcons have is with the run

saints and Rowan Saints also play
in a Mercedes Benz stadium so

you can be in Atlanta thank you so much.

This is the classic Eisenman rendering and

this is where the field sits and
it's not a game day.

And that idea is so powerful that
actually the logo of the stadium actually

includes the parking deck for the grass
in it so that this idea of the really

you know sort of thing about this project
is not the sort of middle class I don't

know with lights but
this spot where that this field rules out

as far as it is the only state in the US
that's that does that even currently.

And finally.

It couldn't end without talking about one
of the two projects where two projects

in Atlanta one is the new Braves stadium
which will be located in the suburbs

that project is decidedly static and

backwards looking not particularly
interesting from a technological point of

view of design perspective mostly interest
it's a question of real estate developers

the brains will have gone from being
a baseball team to being a realistic and.

In that move and the spur is
sort of the secondary issue but

the new Falcon stadium.

Is interesting even if it's friendly to my
mind and not particularly well developed

but as a kind of the steadily forward
looking high tech effort on the part of

Arthur Blank to stay in the city and
craft a kind of new urban identity for

Atlanta and to burn the flagship project
that they hope will become a kind of icon

of the city and the way you generate
momentum for these kinds of projects of

course is by producing an animation that
allows you to fly through the state so

we're going to fly through the new
Falcon state and I'll stop at one or

two points just point out a couple things
for you and I'll take some questions.

Thank you.

OK.

So this is the Oculus thread a retractable
roof it opens and closes like a shredder

this is a retractable roof type
it's never been built before

no one knows how to price it no know how
to maintain it known as a cost that.

It will be open during game to either.

Of the rest now just three sixty deep.

Broadcasting System on the interior of.

The rock music very near him.

Even if there's no game no one
is watching and actually game.

It was just standing.

The only thing that
happens is on the screen.

I mean the rest of the bill really
is about the spaces of consumption

that now start to have must have had
greater numbers and fabulous amounts of

script fluid than ever before because
really the virtue of the stadium

is not that you go to watch a game you
played there to enjoy the spectacle and

to spend money that restaurants and
bars IT shops at the Founders club or

the Piedmont club if you're so lucky.

And again the only game is on
the screens everyone is watching.

The black screen of the field.

One hundred you have brought so you can
be in a simulacrum of the playing field

while drinking your seats will vibrate
when especially powerful heat is made on

the field to let you know that something
happened even though you're not watching

it because you're in the park drinking.

Private seat my sense is it will be
required only one of these many of

the spaces yes you have to join.

Exactly I mean of course.

The king of this castle Arthur Blank very
carefully worked in by the architects.

Who was really behind this whole thing.

And the skyline of the city
unfolding in the background.

And the multiple types of uses so
concerts ostensibly M.L.S.

team will be playing in their.

College basketball.

So the flexibility.

City at

night.

And so.

Even in our own backyard we see how this

kind of investment this kind of faith and
keep in mind this is roughly four hundred

million dollars of public
money going to this project as

as it stands now assuming that
issues of traffic management and

so forth that rearranging the streets and
up has budgeted we don't actually know

where that number will end up so we see.

Sorry.

There's lots of fly through the stadiums
there's lots of new stadium built

and I said you can find Flight three of
all of because it's the that's the way you

convince people to open their wallets and
let the money poor out I'll stop there

appreciate your patience
with technology Thank you.

We have a few minutes if there are any

questions.

That's a religious question so that it's
funny you talk to firms working in Europe

and European studies are way ahead of us
in terms of their kind of engagement with.

Really formal aesthetics that are really
cutting edge but in terms of the way they.

Pull revenue out of each individual
game they are completely in all

of the United States so we're talking
to the operators of the O two Arena

in Glasgow and they said you know
we toured the United States and

we couldn't believe all the different
ways Americans have figured out how

to make people pay when they're at events
and so we were taking notes it was silly

we didn't realize that you could charge
people more to have a drink in a room

by putting you know a label on
the room and calling it the so.

Thing room they said never occurred to us
we just figured people would pay to come

in and they'd buy a pint or they wouldn't
or they'd buy two of the goals to get them

buy more points and it's a bit American
to figure you can sell fewer pies but

just charge ever more for each pint and
you're much better off so

we really lead the world in finding ways
to turn these into revenues for generation

generating machines for generating
revenue even if formally not the projects

are necessarily visually as cutting
edge as what you find other places so

we really are the global leader
in monetizing athletics.

Michael.

Glasgow Yeah.

Yeah.

You know public you know almost every
academic study ever produced shows that

public investments in study you don't
actually generate any net benefit.

You know the argument about sort of
driving economic regeneration in the book

in the surrounding areas particularly
now in most stadium operators don't want

you going to a bar next to the steam and
you're in the bar in the stadium and

so if you think about stuff you know all
those different economic theories that

just because it's a new stadium doesn't
mean I simply have more money to spend on

entertainment so I'm spending money there
would've been spending someplace else so

the net economic benefit
in the US context is

is not that great in the European context
with the less often public funding for

them then I think it's a bit different
especially because they're not surrounded

by parking so you know most European study
you can't drive to them you know in fact

the neighborhoods around the study
are closed off on game day you can't drive

into that you have to walk you have to
take public transport and so there may be

potentially some positive effects I think
just the fact of the stadium can operate.

Nestled into an urban environment without
being surrounded by sea of parking

is in itself a net benefit to the city and
the community in a way that

our stadiums because they require the
Falcons want something like twenty five

thousand surface spaces within a fifteen
minute walk of the stadium right and

that just is not something that benefits
any surrounding community because no one

needs that many parking spaces for
structures or used eight days a year for

that primary purpose it really is a.

It's a mixed bag but they very rarely
live up to the kind of expectations for

economic development that are broadcast
for them by their by their backers.

So

isn't.

It is you know that's a that's a public
private partnership right I mean they're

getting they're getting four
hundred million from the city.

For a variety of different things so there
are there is a lot of the one point two

billion four hundred million
is coming from public dollars.

Wembley those are those are.

Generally not public funds it's not always
the case there are exceptions to that rule

but it's more commonly the case that clubs
would actually own their own stadium.

In a way that doesn't happen in the U.S.
in the U.S. the N.F.L. and

Major League Baseball and the N.B.A. have
been remarkably effective at convincing

politicians that public subsidies for
private corporate entities make sense in

this context even though there's very
little evidence to support that and

that makes us quite distinct in a lot of
ways so the one way that the United States

is a socialist nation is when it
comes to to major league sports.

That's private funds that
have been funded by the club.

Much less expensive project
forty million euros.

But they do that in part because that
will provide a revenue stream for

them in turn because they get more
visitors you can charge more for

tickets and get better players as a

result.

And you know if this
stadium is around beyond

the that the at the name in
agreement with Mercedes Benz.

Runs to twenty forty two
I would be surprised

at the stadium still exists
in twenty forty two.

Just because the cycle.

Is ever shorter the N.F.L. has agreements
with almost all cities that whatever

stadium they're in has to be kept
up to the the industry standard or

the norm so any time one city innovates so

because Atlanta has done this now
teams in every other city can go and

say well we don't have a retractable roof
we don't have an ocular we don't have

it if he was that you can see the skyline
through We're way behind you've got it

you've got to renovate our stadium force
and so it's a it's a constant cycle and

I.

Write Exactly.

Right and that's that that's a distinctive
element in other parts the world where

teams simply do not move
right if if if Arsenal

tried to move out of North London it
would be a riot if Rangers tried to leave

Glasgow you know I mean blood would
be shit it just doesn't happen and

so they can't pull that trick
the way they can here like.

Agreements

or.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah you.

Know that is that again like I
said the social practice of sport

is one of the few things as powerful as
the social practice of architecture and

the two come together it really is
astonishing what can happen and.

Then again one of the ways these billions
gain that kind of power is by being

understood that you know you
redouble the authority of an agent

when you don't realize that they are
agents and when you don't question how and

why these things are as they are it
increases the capacity of these building

types to act out on the urban landscape
and encourage others to behave in

certain ways otherwise they couldn't do if
you understood them implicitly as sites of

power for political and economic agendas
then you react very differently but but

because the nature of sport I mean if you
think about it you were a specific outfit

to go to a game you need specific kinds
of food you sing specific kinds of songs

I mean these are secular cathedrals you
behave in a certain kind of way you assume

a kind of fealty and brotherhood with
people that you don't even know because

they're wearing the same outfit you
are see on the right side of the stand.

They have the same religion and
so I mean it really.

You know I mean it's not quite is the the
end is not quite is violent but there

are.

In the value of C. the value of stadiums
to N.F.L. teams is very clear the N.F.L.

is a revenue sharing operation
it's socialism to the on.

Revenue is not shared this is
revenue generated at stadiums

that's the revenue you get to keep and

the average to the average franchise the
bills the new stadium doubles in value so

the Falcons were recently assessed now one
point four billion they had been a mature

seven hundred million dollar team and
also in the new stadium is already

increased the value the team to one point
four billion the reality is that there is

one major market and if it doesn't
have a football team Los Angeles and

there's a reason for that yes so why does
Los Angeles not have a football team.

They used to they moved the N.F.L.

makes decisions about where teams move
collectively and every team owner knows

that as long as there's no team in Los
Angeles there's always a threat they can

make to whatever city they're in if
you don't pay up I'll move to L.A..

Which is why no team has moved to L.A.
because it's not in the common interest of

the collective ownership to
have a team there because then.

You know what I mean I know in my heart.

I haven't been invited to any meaningful
to discuss that but I mean as a matter

of some kind of rational
assessment it makes perfect sense.

Truly.

Read.

It.

Yeah it really was.

Right.

Right.

Right yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know.

It really you know.

Yeah yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah so yes Ellie.

You.

Were right.

There.

And I'm afraid.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah and
yeah you couldn't do that with a church

you can do whatever the church but
you get away with it with stadium so.

You.

Know you're.

Like yeah.

Yeah yeah.

That's.

Right.

They are.

Thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah just as well and
again that's just you.

Know yes no and
that is again an un-American trend

which is to you know the obvious solution
is your sink much more than that of

the program under the ground plan and that
happens quite a lot quite often in Europe

in South America because you don't
want these things to loom there.

And again because we don't have federal

really meaningful federal
land use regulate.

It's a good thing that distinguishes
United States as some of the regulation

about this is piecemeal at the municipal
and state level whereas in you know

Kingdom and Spain other places there's
much stronger regulation at the national

level that can be imposed.

They were very

agreeable.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes yeah yeah yeah no it's definitely you
know one of the arguments they make is

you know and that's a blank said
Look not only will I bring an M.L.S.

team but
then we'll compete to have a World Cup

to be a World Cup venue when
the World Cup comes the United States.

Which you know the great irony is of
course if you look at the membership

of the city council you don't
you don't look at them and

say look there's a bear is one
football mad city council right so

that the World Cup in Atlanta is really
attractive probably not to people in

Atlanta probably people in the suburbs of
Atlanta specifically Buford Highway and

elsewhere but nevertheless that was that's
always a strategy because one of the I

would you say is like no no this is this
is not going to be sitting empty for

three hundred days of the year there's
going to be cancers they'll be going to

the Final Four will get
the the World Cup will get the.

N.F.L..

Super Bowl sorry.

So that's absolutely a strategy how
often that's actually the case is really

something else entirely because of course
that's not that's not in their power

to control that.

Did.

You.

Know.

Why why.

The two for one is is that they when
you build a new stadium you can do

one thing really critically but you can't
do it existing scene which is you can

change the nature of how people access
the stadium so what will happen in the new

British stadium is that you won't be
able to just buy a ticket to the game

you have to buy private places which is
like a license to buy a ticket is that

there is a buy a fishing license which
doesn't mean you're fishing major threat

to go fishing so you buy a private suit
license that may run anywhere from five

hundred to fifty thousand dollars they
give you the right to then buy a ticket so

you develop a whole new revenue stream
I mean it was just by doing that.

For a cup candidate for Cup tennis because
they have they have this tour they

have this real estate that's
currently generating no revenue.

For them that the bridge will be an anchor
tenant of a much larger real estate deal

that's going to have a hotel it's going to
shops going to restaurants they can get

some infrastructure improvements paid for
at the public level they could never get

if there wasn't a baseball stadium right
because Cup can use a notoriously anti tax

but if you're just going to say look we
just want to build a shopping mall and

a and a hotel and a pedestrian bridge
we have said that with my tax dollars

you know you know you're not redirecting
existing tax revenues from schools

into this because that's
essentially a swap but

if you attach it to a baseball stadium and
you say well given the Braves

from Atlanta you tap into cards resentment
of the city of Atlanta and I mean if you

read if you read the sports the comments
in the sports sections and these articles

about the station relocation it gets quite
ugly really quickly and the racialize.

Overtones of that move are unpleasant and
really stunning to hear people

I'll be a behind the moniker of like you
know Braves fan ninety nine don't know

who that is saying things like I want to
go to the ghetto to watch a baseball game

you know have fun have fun get carjacked
in Atlanta you know Falcons fans and

other things so I think there's a kind of

resentment on the part of cup county
leadership towards the city of Atlanta but

also then this is this is their chance to
really Ostensibly I think be a measure

pull in sales revenue sales tax revenues
from all the activity that happens there

I think short sighted because of course if
they took the money for their spending to

do that and invested it in other ways they
might find an equally valuable return but

that requires American political
leadership whereas building a stadium Any

moron can can can can seemingly
be convinced into doing.

Better is no better evidence than
Scott Walker notoriously anti tax

notoriously anti government spending
subsidizing the Milwaukee Bucks is new

arena mid tier terrible team to
the tune of three hundred fifty million

using the argument that it's good for the
state because we can if we lose the team

we'd lose their income tax on these
highly played basketball players.

Right.

Here.

By about the same amount and and that
actually works you don't get thrown out of

office for making these horrendous deals
that are incredibly short sighted and

incredibly bad for the public people
because because it's the brave stadium

you know people say like well
it's worth it we got to do

it.

The cycle never ends.